A major scandal is brewing in the langrendsverdenen.
indeed, austrian police on Wednesday, during the WORLD cup in Seefeld, where a major raid on the Hotel Bergland resulted in nine arrests. Including at least two of them doctors and the five WORLD cup-runners.
It comes after the local media information on the austrians Dominik baldauf says he and Max Hauke and estonians Andreas Veerpalu and Karel Tammjarv.
in Addition, a yet unnamed runs from Kazakhstan arrested – here was the star Alexey Poltoranin not for the start of Wednesday’s 15 km, so much to suggest that it was him.
The big langrendsstjerne Alexey Poltoranin is reportedly among those arrested in doping raid at the WORLD cup in Seefeld, Austria. Photo: Martti Kainulainen/AP/Ritzau Scanpix
That there was talk about quite concrete suspicions were confirmed that one of those arrested, runners were surprised in the process of carrying out a blood transfusion.
– One of the arrested athletes were caught in the act when he was in the process of completing a so-called bloddoping with a needle in his arm, says Dieter Csefan from the austrian federal criminal police to the Norwegian VG at the press conference in Innsbruck.
But it was actually also what the police had wagered on. For they have had some also arrested doctors in the spotlight.
– Yes. We have monitored the practitioners around the clock, and knew that they had met the suspects doctors.
We are sure that, it is global, organised crime is behind, and that it has occurred in more than five years
– We got the information that the head of the organised crime group would come here to Seefeld and meeting the runners, says Dieter Cserfan.
It was at the Hotel Bergland in Seefeld, the police swooped to. Photo: Lisi Neisner/Reuters/Ritzau Scanpix
the Identity of the head of the dopingringen, which is believed to operate from the German city of Erfurt, is not known, but the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung should have identified one of the organizers as Mark Schmidt, who previously was affiliated with the German cycling team Gerolsteiner, where he, according to the dopingdømte rider Bernhard Kohl was behind a larger doping program.
It is not the first time that a raid takes place during a major langrendskonkurrence. Thus it came to pass also during the OLYMPICS in Turin in 2006, where six austrians got livstidskarantæner, when Italian police found illegal drugs in their rooms.
Doping is illegal in Italy, and it was three years later, Austria also to criminalize it. Thus, the penalty in Austria for up to ten years in prison for breaches of doping legislation.